Sometimes, when I sneeze or blow my nose, I can feel air escaping through the corner of my left eye. It feels incredibly weird, as if I’m no longer properly sealed. Have I developed some kind of “eye incontinence”?

Swedish summers are short, but this year most of it didn’t get washed away by rain. Instead, it’s been an absolutely excellent summer, filled with travel and experiences that will stay with me.

I’ve reconnected with several old buddies, met some new folks, and spent an entire month in a beautifully summery Stockholm (🙏🐥).

I also managed to squeeze in a summer party and family reunion outside Nyköping in July with near and dear relatives from the Andersson side of the family (🙏👩🏻‍🦲👱‍♀️).

I’ve exercised a lot, got plenty of writing done and, for the most part, managed to keep my mental protrubernces at a reasonable height, sometimes barely breaking the surface.

This summer I’ve also been inspired by watching a friend (🚍) make his way back from surgical hell and emerge alive, proud and standing tall from the depths of purgatory. What a painful journey that must have been.

And then there’s my great cousin Esther, who at 93 broke her hip in a fall and has since made a remarkable recovery. Extraordinary willpower, resilience, and apparently some pretty decent healing genes. So that makes two new sources of inspiration.

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more politically unsteady than I do ahead of the upcoming Swedish election. My social-media feed is doing its absolute best to radicalise me in one direction or the other. I’m trying instead to mobilise against the worst of it – the crude, unnuanced populism that moves so freely and seeps so easily into already confused minds.

Soon Maurice White will be singing about September again.

Do you remember?